Jovian Cyclone

Category Archives: Juno

NASA: A cyclonic storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere is captured in this image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Many bright white cloud tops can be seen popping up in and around the arms of the rotating storm.

The color-enhanced image was taken at 9:25 a.m. PST (12:25 p.m. EST) on Feb. 12, 2019, as the spacecraft performed its 17th science flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, above approximately 44 degrees north latitude.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

This fantastic image of Jupiter was created by Kevin M. Gill using data from the JunoCam aboard the Juno spacecraft.

You too can create such images from Juno’s data, just pop over to the JunoCam website to find out how. I have temporarily abandoned my efforts at working on the images. I need to replace this computer with something a little more capable, it’s in the works but still down the road a couple more months.

NASA: This striking view of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and turbulent southern hemisphere was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet.

Juno took the three images used to produce this color-enhanced view on Feb. 12, 2019, between 9:59 a.m. PST (12:59 p.m. EST) and 10:39 a.m. PST (1:39 p.m. EST), as the spacecraft performed its 17th science pass of Jupiter. At the time the images were taken, the spacecraft was between 16,700 miles (26,900 kilometers) and 59,300 miles (95,400 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, above a southern latitude spanning from about 40 to 74 degrees.

Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager.

The Juno spacecraft recently made another very close pass near the Jupiter cloud tops. This is one of the citizen scientist contributions using data from Juno. You too can participate, just go to the JunoCam (Juno) site and find out how – see link below.

NASA: Dramatic atmospheric features in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere are captured in this view from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The new perspective shows swirling clouds that surround a circular feature within a jet stream region called “Jet N6.”

This color-enhanced image was taken at 9:20 a.m. PST on Feb. 12, 2019 (12:20 p.m. EST), as the spacecraft performed its 18th close flyby of the gas giant planet. At the time, Juno was about 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, above a latitude of approximately 55 degrees north.

Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager. The image has been rotated approximately 100 degrees to the right.

Very nice work once again from Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using Juno data. I am on hold from doing any work with Juno data, my computer goes into spasms with even modest graphics, maps will send it into meltdown mode. A cure is planned.

NASA – A giant, spiraling storm in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere is captured in this animation from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The storm is approximately 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) across.

The counterclockwise motion of the storm, called Oval BA, is clearly on display. A similar rotation can be seen in the famous Great Red Spot at the top of the animation.

Juno took the nine images used to produce this movie sequence on Dec. 21, between 9:24 a.m. PST (12:24 p.m. EST) and 10:07 a.m. PST (1:07 p.m. EST). At the time the images were taken, the spacecraft was between approximately 15,400 miles (24,800 kilometers) and 60,700 miles (97,700 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops above southern latitudes spanning about 36 to 74 degrees.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created this animation using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager.

NASA: Jupiter’s moon Io rises just off the horizon of the gas giant planet in this image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system.

This color-enhanced image was taken at 2:26 p.m. PDT (5:56 p.m. EDT) on Oct. 29, 2018 as the spacecraft performed its 16th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 11,400 miles (18,400 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, at approximately 32 degrees south latitude.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Justin Cowart created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager. This image has been rotated approximately 155 degrees from the source image.

JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and to process into image products at: http://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam.

More information about Juno is at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

It’s been a while since I shared some of the great images coming from the public using the JunoCam data, so here you go. Very nice work!

NASA: Intricate swirls in Jupiter’s volatile northern hemisphere are captured in this color-enhanced image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Bursts of bright-white “pop-up” clouds appear scattered throughout the scene, with some visibly casting shadows on the neighboring cloud layers beneath them. Juno scientists are using shadows to determine the distances between cloud layers in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which provide clues to their composition and origin.

This image was taken at 10:27 p.m. PDT on May 23, 2018 (1:27 a.m. EDT on May 24) as the spacecraft performed its 13th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 7,050 miles (11,350 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, above a northern latitude of approximately 49 degrees.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager.

This animation was made with JunoCam data and shows what it would be like to fly into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. First we fly us across the clouds in the southern hemisphere at about 3000 km and then we dive into the Great Red Spot. Watch the temperature come up as we start descending, very interesting, at about 160 or so km deep the temperature is about what we have on Earth (287 Kelvin or so); then at about 225 km down the temperature goes up to just over 500 K (227 C / 440 F).

Here’s the news release with the video (links below go off site):

For centuries, scientists have worked to understand the makeup of Jupiter. It’s no wonder: this mysterious planet is the biggest one in our solar system by far, and chemically, the closest relative to the Sun. Understanding Jupiter is key to learning more about how our solar system formed, and even about how other solar systems develop.

But one critical question has bedeviled astronomers for generations: Is there water deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere, and if so, how much?

By looking from ground-based telescopes at wavelengths sensitive to thermal radiation leaking from the depths of Jupiter’s persistent storm, the Great Red Spot, they detected the chemical signatures of water above the planet’s deepest clouds. The pressure of the water, the researchers concluded, combined with their measurements of another oxygen-bearing gas, carbon monoxide, imply that Jupiter has 2 to 9 times more oxygen than the Sun. This finding supports theoretical and computer-simulation models that have predicted abundant water (H2O) on Jupiter made of oxygen (O) tied up with molecular hydrogen (H2).

Some exciting Juno results. The “new volcano” is found by looking just below the bright feature in the center of the image. Click the image for help finding the object.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

NASA: Data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft using its Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument point to a new heat source close to the south pole of Io that could indicate a previously undiscovered volcano on the small moon of Jupiter. The infrared data were collected on Dec. 16, 2017, when Juno was about 290,000 miles (470,000 kilometers) away from the moon.

“The new Io hotspot JIRAM picked up is about 200 miles (300 kilometers) from the nearest previously mapped hotspot,” said Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. “We are not ruling out movement or modification of a previously discovered hot spot, but it is difficult to imagine one could travel such a distance and still be considered the same feature.”

The Juno team will continue to evaluate data collected on the Dec. 16 flyby, as well as JIRAM data that will be collected during future (and even closer) flybys of Io. Past NASA missions of exploration that have visited the Jovian system (Voyagers 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini and New Horizons), along with ground-based observations, have located over 150 active volcanoes on Io so far. Scientists estimate that about another 250 or so are waiting to be discovered.

Juno has logged nearly 146 million miles (235 million kilometers) since entering Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016. Juno’s 13th science pass will be on July 16.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet’s cloud tops — as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI), contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

The Juno has helped solve the mystery of Jupiter’s lightning. PLUS, NASA has announced the Juno mission has been re-planned adding 41 months in orbit. That change will enable the spacecraft to collect more data, the orbits are 53 days instead of the planned 14 so collecting the necessary data takes longer.

So great news there and now about the lightning (artist concept above from NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/JunoCam(:

NASA: Ever since NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft flew past Jupiter in March, 1979, scientists have wondered about the origin of Jupiter’s lightning. That encounter confirmed the existence of Jovian lightning, which had been theorized for centuries. But when the venerable explorer hurtled by, the data showed that the lightning-associated radio signals didn’t match the details of the radio signals produced by lightning here at Earth.

In a new paper published in Nature today, scientists from NASA’s Juno mission describe the ways in which lightning on Jupiter is actually analogous to Earth’s lightning. Although, in some ways, the two types of lightning are polar opposites.

“No matter what planet you’re on, lightning bolts act like radio transmitters — sending out radio waves when they flash across a sky,” said Shannon Brown of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a Juno scientist and lead author of the paper. “But until Juno, all the lightning signals recorded by spacecraft [Voyagers 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini] were limited to either visual detections or from the kilohertz range of the radio spectrum, despite a search for signals in the megahertz range. Many theories were offered up to explain it, but no one theory could ever get traction as the answer.”

Enter Juno, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 4, 2016. Among its suite of highly sensitive instruments is the Microwave Radiometer Instrument (MWR), which records emissions from the gas giant across a wide spectrum of frequencies.

“In the data from our first eight flybys, Juno’s MWR detected 377 lightning discharges,” said Brown. “They were recorded in the megahertz as well as gigahertz range, which is what you can find with terrestrial lightning emissions. We think the reason we are the only ones who can see it is because Juno is flying closer to the lighting than ever before, and we are searching at a radio frequency that passes easily through Jupiter’s ionosphere.”

While the revelation showed how Jupiter lightning is similar to Earth’s, the new paper also notes that where these lightning bolts flash on each planet is actually quite different.

“Jupiter lightning distribution is inside out relative to Earth,” said Brown. “There is a lot of activity near Jupiter’s poles but none near the equator. You can ask anybody who lives in the tropics — this doesn’t hold true for our planet.”

Why do lightning bolts congregate near the equator on Earth and near the poles on Jupiter? Follow the heat.

Earth’s derives the vast majority of its heat externally from solar radiation, courtesy of our Sun. Because our equator bears the brunt of this sunshine, warm moist air rises (through convection) more freely there, which fuels towering thunderstorms that produce lightning.

Jupiter’s orbit is five times farther from the Sun than Earth’s orbit, which means that the giant planet receives 25 times less sunlight than Earth. But even though Jupiter’s atmosphere derives the majority of its heat from within the planet itself, this doesn’t render the Sun’s rays irrelevant. They do provide some warmth, heating up Jupiter’s equator more than the poles — just as they heat up Earth. Scientists believe that this heating at Jupiter’s equator is just enough to create stability in the upper atmosphere, inhibiting the rise of warm air from within. The poles, which do not have this upper-level warmth and therefore no atmospheric stability, allow warm gases from Jupiter’s interior to rise, driving convection and therefore creating the ingredients for lightning.

“These findings could help to improve our understanding of the composition, circulation and energy flows on Jupiter,” said Brown. But another question looms. “Even though we see lightning near both poles, why is it mostly recorded at Jupiter’s north pole?”

In a second Juno lightning paper published today in Nature Astronomy, Ivana Kolmašová of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, and colleagues, present the largest database of lightning-generated low-frequency radio emissions around Jupiter (whistlers) to date. The data set of more than 1,600 signals, collected by Juno’s Waves instrument, is almost 10 times the number recorded by Voyager 1. Juno detected peak rates of four lightning strikes per second (similar to the rates observed in thunderstorms on Earth) which is six times higher than the peak values detected by Voyager 1.

“These discoveries could only happen with Juno,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio. “Our unique orbit allows our spacecraft to fly closer to Jupiter than any other spacecraft in history, so the signal strength of what the planet is radiating out is a thousand times stronger. Also, our microwave and plasma wave instruments are state-of-the-art, allowing us to pick out even weak lightning signals from the cacophony of radio emissions from Jupiter. “

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will make its 13th science flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on July 16.

Beautiful work! Check this and other great submissions to the JunoCam site, not to mention the original images from Juno for anybody who wants to try their hands at processing.

Original caption:

This image of Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot and surrounding turbulent zones was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.

The color-enhanced image is a combination of three separate images taken on April 1 between 3:09 a.m. PDT (6:09 a.m. EDT) and 3:24 a.m. PDT (6:24 a.m. EDT), as Juno performed its 12th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the images were taken, the spacecraft was 15,379 miles (24,749 kilometers) to 30,633 miles (49,299 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a southern latitude spanning 43.2 to 62.1 degrees.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.